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While thinking, in a deep sense, should be pivotal to education, our schools still prioritise rote or mechanistic learning. Though most Indian Boards now include HOTS or questions that require “higher-order thinking” wherein students have to analyse,..
In the last of a tetrad of articles on promoting creativity in children, I elaborate on the positives of play. Just as painting, playing the piano and participating in pantomimes can endow children with various skills and dispositions, good, old-fashioned…
A look into the age-old question of which is better: printed books or e-books? The first time I bought an e-book on Kindle, I was enchanted by the instantness of the transaction. While I have shifted more towards e-books, mainly…
In her book, How Art Works, psychologist Ellen Winner describes a prison program, aptly named, Shakespeare Behind Bars, where inmates, convicted of serious crimes, spent many months rehearsing for a Shakespeare play. Apparently, the recidivism rate of those who took part in…
Last month, I delineated the skills and dispositions that children acquire when they engage in the visual arts. In this, the second of a four-part series on creative pursuits, I discuss the benefits of music on developing minds. Before diving…
While children are engaged with online classes for a few hours every day, many of them have ample amounts of free time. As their usual routines have been disrupted by the pandemic, their once harried schedules of school, tuition, and…
In the conventional mode of education, still prevalent in our digital age, teachers elucidate a concept and then pose questions to students. Pupils are expected to answer queries after listening to the teacher’s explanation. At times, teachers stop f…
In an earlier article titled “Online classes and the four pillars of learning”, I had spelled out how teachers may use the four pillars of learning, put forth by neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene in his book How We Learn, to make learning more…
Is this a fish market?” teachers yell as they enter classrooms filled with animated chatter. Though teachers may frown upon students chit-chatting during a free period, students talking to each other is an essential feature of language development. La…
When revising, is it better to re-read your notes or answer a set of questions? In an earlier article, I had elaborated on the benefits of testing as an effective learning strategy. Questioning yourself after reading a chapter is more…
Aruna Sankaranarayanan is the author of Zero Limits: Things Every 20 Something Should Know. She was the Founder & Director of PRAYATNA, a centre for children with learning difficulties in Bengaluru & Chennai for 22 years.